


Density of Fog

by tatooedlaura



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Ficlet, X-Files OctoberFicFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 05:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8237603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Something so beautiful yet frightening at times ...





	

She’d known him for what felt like centuries now. Sometimes even eons, depending on what his chosen lecture was for that particular day.

She’d known his tendency to ramble since day four.

She’d known his need to have the slide projector remote in his hand at all times since 15 minutes after their initial meeting.

She’d known he had absolutely no ability to pick out a tie since the moment he spun around in his office chair.

She did not, however, discover his love of foggy pre-dawn mornings until roughly 14 seconds ago.

“What?”

“It’s like pea soup out there, Scully. I mean, I could barely find your cabin even though you’re right next door.” His boyish exuberance, as it had been labeled in the past, was the only thing holding her back from throttling him and telling him to go the hell back to bed. In fact, to be brutally honest, she already had her fist balled up tight, ready to carry out said throttling but as usual, something stayed her hand.

It was the beautiful, clear, blue in his eyes that caught her attention. He was genuinely albeit adorably desperate for her to come outside with him and given she had a soul, she began crawling from under the covers, grumbling for his benefit only, hoping to make him feel just guilty enough to buy her breakfast when the fog nonsense was finished.

Finally free of the comforter, she sat on the edge of the bed, blinking several times, then squinting up at him, seeing him in his plaid flannel pajama pants and thermal, “apparently I won’t be needing to get dressed?”

“Nope.” Holding out his hand, he pulled her up, “it’s not very cold out. You’ll be fine.”

Too tired to argue, she shuffled her way to the door, sliding her feet in her unlaced boots, thankful she had slept in her socks that night. Mulder waited once again until she tugged on the oversize grey sweatshirt he held out, then nodding at her, opened the door.

Scully’s eyes grew wide. He wasn’t kidding. Her crazy, let’s tell Scully the weirdest crap possible partner had been totally telling the truth. The wall of fog seemed impenetrable, a light grey mass in front of them, making her feel like she was at the edge of the world, the only thing beyond the fog would be nothingness, an empty void filled with silence and despair.

It made her heart thud heavily in her chest, her rational brain losing grip as an unformed terror took over. As she took a step back into the cabin, Mulder gave her an odd look, noticing the less-than-awed expression on her face, “you okay?”

“To be completely honest, I don’t know.”

Since he’d been studying her since the beginning of time and been not-so-secretly in love with her since two days after that, he took a leap, “kind of scary, isn’t it? Feels like maybe there’s nothing out there anymore? Just you and me and a massive amount of alone?”

Wrapping her arms around herself, she would have been embarrassed if it had been anyone but Mulder, “yeah. I mean, it’s so damned irrational that I can’t seem to get a handle on it.”

Mulder reached out, working her hand free from its spot between her elbow and her side, taking it firmly in his, “come on. We’re gonna go see if we can conquer the unknown.”

Her thoughts were getting more surreal with every moment and she didn’t like it so she followed, willingly, as usual, if only because she knew he would keep her grounded. Pulling the door shut behind her, she moved down the steps, sticking close to Mulder as they were both swallowed by the swirly mist.

The world around them, already hushed given they were in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Wyoming, seemed to get even quieter, any sound muffled, deadened on Scully’s straining ears. “Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you still respect me if I tell you I am completely creeped out by this?”

“Of course.” Giving her hand a squeeze, “will you still respect me if I tell you we might get a little lost on the way to the lake?”

“Wait? We’re going walk to the lake? We’re going trip on trees and branches and run into trees and branches and did I mention there’s a good chance I firmly believe there are all manners of three headed monsters and clowns out here with us at this very moment?”

He chuckled low, somehow knowing that a loud laugh would ruin the subdued beauty surrounding them, “I won’t let any of them get you, okay? I’ll fight them off with my speedy fists and roundhouse kicks.” Mulder felt her skeptical eyebrow raise even without her in his field of vision and laughed again, “okay, I’ll leave the roundhouse kicking to you.”

“How in the world did you know what I was thinking?”

“Your ‘you’re full of shit’ eyebrow can be very loud in the morning.”

With a smile and a heart that seemed to be calming down slightly, she continued to follow, settling in to the muted tread of boot against damp leaf as they maneuvered on.

Then, all of a sudden, there it was, spread out before them in a monochromatic swath, light grey fog swimming above dark grey water, near black stones skirting the shoreline and near white driftwood scattered throughout. He heard her sharp inhale before, “oh, my God, Mulder, it’s beautiful.”

“I know.”

They stood in silence for the longest time, until Mulder stopped fighting his inner rationality and shifted behind her, sliding his arms around her neck, settling his chin on her shoulder and his mouth by her ear. She responded in kind, stepping back into him slightly and reaching up to grip his forearms. With a smile he knew Scully could feel on her cheek, “right here is the best thing about fog. The thing that cancels out the monsters and the fear and the nothing. The thing that makes waking up at 5am not so bad after all.”

Pretty sure she knew what he meant, she made him work for it anyways, “what’s that?”

Taking a deep breath in, he declared in a quiet whisper, one that tickled her skin and sent a single shiver down her spine, “that I get do hold you and we don’t have to worry if anyone’s going to see us.”

She squeezed his arms, resting her head gently against his lips, “I’ve never liked fog more than right now.”


End file.
